Oh, my gosh, this was the best cream cheese I've ever had, no joke! Having the fresh tang of the cream cheese on my toast this morning was great! It's a bit soft, but I'm putting it in the fridge and I think it'll set up just fine. So creamy and tangy. I'm going to have to find a more local source of the starter, though, that's the main expense. Definitely going to try some other active cultures and see how it effects the taste of the cream cheese.

All in all, a super easy way to make cream cheese, it just takes longer than going to the store and buying it off the shelf!

I am sort of making this today. I didn't go out and buy regular cream like the recipe calls for so I'm modifying the recipe a bit. I already had in the fridge, a pint of heavy whipping cream that I bought by mistake, and a pint of half and half open, with about 1/2 cup used. So I put both into a 1 quart canning jar and mixed them together with the mesophilic starter. And since I like my house to be a touch on the cool side, I put the jar in the oven with just the light. I'm already proofing a batch of sourdough starter in the lighted oven to make bread with this weekend, so the cheese starter will be warming along side of that. Hopefully the sourdough starter will not send any odor or taste over to the cream cheese jar!

I have never made any kind of cheese without heating the milk (or cream) to a specific temperature before adding the culture, and then heating more to shrink the curds, so I'm interested in seeing how this all turns out this weekend! Since I have class tonight and work tomorrow, I won't have time to do anything with it until Saturday, so it will have a day and a half to ferment. I really hope it turns out well, this is so much easier to do than heating and dealing with the curds of regular cheese making!

Thanks so much for the response. I definately will not be using yoghert then because I don't really like it unless it is disguised...... If I get good results with the culture, I may try it with buttermilk later just to compare...... But in the meantime, I guess I will just have to try to find some culture....

If you use yogurt, you will get a more sour cream-tasting cheese. If you like the tang, use it, it works and tastes fine but does not really have the neutral flavor of cream cheese. Buttermilk will make a very smooth flavor but in my experience making goat cheese, it does not seem to make as hard of a curd so my cheeses always tended to softness. Probably not a bad thing since you want smoothness in cream cheese, but I would be concerned at the cheese not setting up enough, but be more like a yogurty consistency!

Questions about this. If I were to use yoghert or perhaps buttermilk, what would be the difference in texture and taste? (I think there is a reference in the article to using buttermilk and I know she mentioned yoghert cheese is not the same but did not see why)

I don't normally use either except in some cooking (love buttermilk pancakes, and sometimes use yoghert mixed with mayo for potatoe salad dressing.... so I don't usually have them around, but they are readily available at the grocery store.

Linda Send me an email thru spark people with you home email address. I'll copy and paste it to that email and send it to you. then you can print my reply.

Go to My Trackers and a drop down window will appear. In the list is SparkMail...Click on it. Type in my Spark Name gemini-sky and in the message part, give me you home email address...then click send. I'll know it is from you. It is secure and I will be the only person that gets it. I will reply to you on that email with the recipe.

I have vision problems so it is often hard for me to do the copy and print thing..... I know it costs for the supplies but I can't get close enough to the computer screen to see clearly which is why I like the paper.... I can bring it right up to my nose without worrying about any kind of radiation or whatever.

But I will try to see what I can do...... Thanks for checking it out for me....

Hi Linda...I just went back to the link and you're right ...No link to print... You can right click and hold it down and scan over what you want to print and paste it to a note pad in your computers start menu and then print from there. I just save it to a Recipe folder in my documents and refer to it later...Saves on paper and ink. Hope this helps.

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